Once you have decided to bring HRIS into the company, once you have sold your CEO or CFO on the value of the investment, your every move will be under scrutiny. You don’t have to become paranoid about the challenge – but it wouldn’t hurt.
Having worked hard to bring this initiative to fruition, you cannot afford to have it fail. You will be measured by its success. So, anticipate the challenges and get ahead of them.
1. Any change will upset the apple cart. Anything new will put some people on the offensive. Any attempt to change the status quo can cost you big time.Whatever your motive or that of your CEO/CFO is, you cannot overlook the fact that the move to HRIS is a fundamental and deep down change. It is a full-scale, enterprise-wide event. You need to hold fast to this revolution and anticipate how the change will impact the individuals in your organization. Among the hats you wear as HR leader is “agent of change” and “change manager.” You need to know the employee concerns, needs, and opinions before the installation, during the change, and after the move.
2. Most HRIS breakdowns begin in your* failure to identify, name, and address:
- the fact that change – of a universal sort – is actually underway
- the reason that all this is happening
- the short and long-term affect this change will have on employees
- what you* have to do to support the change.
*You are the center of this change process, and the failure will be yours.
3. Plan your approach. Think forward about what you can and must do to make this work. You know your team and workforce better than outsiders do. But, review case studies on success and failure in other companies, and push your HRIS vendor to meet your specific unique needs.
- Form a change team based on a thorough assessment of the members “change style.” Employ an assessment indicator, such as that available from Discovery Learning’s Change Style Indicator or the Center for Creative Leadership. You need to assess the readiness of all officers, managers, supervisors, and employees. All the results will not serve your interests, but they will tell you what needs to be addressed.
- Communication will be the difference between success and failure. Start with “pre-communication.” Lay the foundation for the change well in advance, encourage input and feedback, and demonstrate the advantages. Deliver a message that this is underway and will change their work lives for the better.
- Once you have softened the market, draw a picture of the process that will happen. Put a calendar on the implementation and each of its steps. And, test to determine if the message is understood and welcome.
- Train to teach employees how to benefit – and to fix dissatisfaction. Revisit the value of the change regularly. And, fully indoctrinate new hires.
You should exploit a secret weapon. Choose your HRIS vendor based in large part on their ability to support the transition with info, training, and communications. Vendors like ADP Workforce Now, Ceridian Dayforce HCM, Kronos Workforce Central, Fairsail HR Cloud, Sage HRMS, and others have strong training and installation mechanisms.
